“The Ties That Bind” – Baritone Mark Billy Brings People Together With Lyrics and Language and Love

Baritone Mark Billy singing on stage.
Baritone Mark Billy. Photos by Joy Neel from the premier of the Chickasaw opera Loksi’ Shaali’ by Jerod Tate

Within the Uptown Minneapolis venue’s lobby, which is, in fact, tonight’s venue, the sound bounces off the maize-yellow brick walls, spirals like dream-catching spider webs through the three glowing chandeliers, slides across the black bar with the elegance of a shelved elf, then swirls up the bar’s two ivory columns like invisible tinsel, eventually easing into the ear holes of the audience.

Which is also the sound’s source.

The audience is composed of nearly two dozen blue-haired civilians, non-singer singers whose ages range, with a few exceptions, from 60 to 120. It’s perhaps ten degrees too cold in the place, but no one seems to mind.

The Uptown Minneapolis venue is nearly a century old, but the melody that shapes the sound is twice that. The strain of the bouncing sound is no great surprise, of course — it’s December 22, 2024, Christmas Eve Eve Eve, one might say, and the familiar siciliana is that of the iconic Yuletide hymn “Silent Night.” But the lyrics … well, the anything-but-silent lyrics speak for themselves, kind of:

“Ninak achukma ka, Ninak Holitopa,

“Moyuma kvt, chúlosa, Fichik laua kut tohwikeli,

“Nanta katihmi ho? Nanta katihmi ho?”

The choir/audience, reading and singing from dog-eared programs, definitely have a designated leader. He holds court on the lobby’s south side, resplendent in a turquoise tunic whose brightness is outshone only by the glowing, glittering seasonal lights he wears like a seizure-inducing necklace.

This is Mark Billy, who describes himself as “a queer, Indigenous opera singer.” The “opera singer” part of Billy’s unlikely identity comes through with each bar of the hymn, as every note is hit with the fidelity of a prizefighter … but there’s something more happening, too. The commingling of the untrained voices, sopranos, basses and the-just-plain-tone-deaf, has caused the audience members to bond just as much as their voices have … and that’s no accident.

“It was about bringing everyone together,” the designated leader confirms later, explaining the purpose of his final recital number being presented and shared in Choctaw, the lingo of Mark Billy’s tribe. “I didn’t realize the significance of language until I grew up. Now I love inviting people to participate, to join me. People singing together can bring them together and experience Choctaw in an intimate way.”

Billy’s larynx isn’t his only tool for fostering such intimacy with the individuals who form his audiences. He has mastered the clarinet and native flute, as well … but Billy’s primary method of bringing people together is the pairing and sharing of language.

“Besides just singing, I do a lot of workshops, more of a teaching role, teaching people how to speak Choctaw and how to sing it, as well,” Billy says. “People always go crazy for [the singing].”

Baritone Mark Billy on stage with musicians playing behind him.

Just one month before the Choctaw Christmas Concert, Billy presided over an interactive workshop that achieved this laudable end.

Recalls Billy, “I was the featured artist and artistic educator in a series of workshops at the Saint Paul Public Libraries focusing on singing in Choctaw — this culminated in a public concert where I performed works by Indigenous composers and collaborated with students from the workshop and the Ojibwe hip hop artist Thomas X.”

An “Ojibwe hip hop artist” … and you thought a “queer, Indigenous opera singer” sounded improbable.

In 2025, Billy has, naturally, continued to bond individuals together, employing the glue of lyrics. In February, he’ll travel to Boston to reprise his role in another mind-bending amalgamation.

Composed by Indigenous songsmith Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, the opera is entitled Loksi’ Shaali’, which in English translates to Shell Shaker. It reinterprets the old legend of how the Chickasaw people cosmically received turtle shells for ceremonies and stomp dancing.

“I created the lead baritone role of Inki’ in the historic first opera to ever be sung completely in an Indigenous language,” Mark Billy says. “The opera was sung in Chickasaw.”

Choctaw, Chickasaw, English — crikes, how many languages does this guy know? Catalogs the baritone, “In April 2025, I’ll join the Oklahoma City Philharmonic in the world premiere of Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s American Indian Symphony in which I will sing in six different Indigenous languages.”

Nice work, if you can get it.

During the remainder of spring 2025, Mark Billy will be singing solo for the Bach Society of Minnesota, the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra and the Rochester Symphony. During these collaborations, he’ll lend his full tones to more Eurocentric pieces, bringing people together via music and language just as surely as he did in that Uptown Minneapolis venue during moonswept December.

Each of the baritone’s improbable pairings brings people together, but each also affirms a pairing that is the core of Mark Billy himself. As he puts it: “All of the projects I involve myself in, I try to honor my Choctaw heritage as well as my life as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.”

www.markbillybaritone.com

Lavender Magazine Logo White

5100 Eden Ave, Suite 107 • Edina, MN 55436
©2025 Lavender Media, Inc.

Accessibility & Website Disclaimer